But he told Radio Times magazine the corporation took action when viewers complained "they hated the way I sounded".

He said: "Even when you are a reasonably successful print journalist, people may complain about the columns you write, but it's not quite the same – it's nowhere near as personal as what happens as soon as you get on the TV or radio.

"People feel somehow that they can say all sorts of things to you, some of them nice, some of them unbelievably rude.

"And if you work for the BBC they think they employ you – and they do employ us, because they pay the licence fee – so they can say what they like.

"I know the BBC found it quite uncomfortable because it wasn't just people writing to me, it was people moaning in newspapers, and there was quite a lot written about how crap I was."

Asked how the BBC dealt with disgruntled viewers, he said: "They sent me off for training to iron out my eccentricities. They failed completely.

"They hired various presentation specialists, all of whom have gone on to seek other careers, I'm sure, because it was a total failure.

"And then, I had been moaning away about how the economic world as we knew it was about to come to an end because of all these banks taking these stupid risks – and lo and behold it happened.

"I got one or two decent stories, and suddenly people stopped obsessing about the way I said things and started to take an interest in what I was saying.

"And at that point, funnily enough, my eccentricities became quite a useful thing, because people knew who I was and they worked out that what I was saying mattered to their lives, and they began to take notice."

Peston joked: "I was the only person in Britain who was (saved by the economic crash). I owe everything to the crash."

He admitted that he did attempt to change some of his on-air delivery.

"Having a style where people know it's you is a good thing, but if they struggle to understand what you're saying, that's a bad thing," he said.

In recent months the broadcaster has received criticism on Twitter over his appearance after growing his once short-cropped hair into a floppy Hugh Grant look.

"I think I must be going through a mid-life crisis. I just sort of woke up one day and thought, 'I'll grow my hair'. So I have," he said.